Guiding Question Do birds eat more from 9:00-10:00 am or from 3:00-4:00 pm?
Background Birds have to eat. It does make sense that they will eat more in the morning because they haven’t eaten in suck a long time. On the other hand in past experiments scientists have found that time of day does not influence how much birds eat.
Hypothesis: I think that more birds will eat in the morning than the evening because they have not eaten all night and need to eat to be productive doing their waking hours.
Independent Variable: Time of day
Dependent Variable: The number of birds eating
Control Variables:
feeder
location
seed
day
weather (although I cannot control it I need to keep it in mind)
Materials:
birds feeder (bowl)
seed (TBD)
notebook
binoculars
data sheet
pencil
Procedure:
Put bird seed in a bowl
Weigh the bowl
Set the bowl out at 7 am
Take it down and weigh it
Wait until 3 pm
Refill bowl
Weigh bowl
Place bowl outside and wait an hour
Take the bowl down and weigh it
Repeat these steps for three days
Discussion:
My experiment was not very effective. The weather was inconsistent and no birds came. In the future I will have a bird feeder out for a month or more before I start my experiment so that the bird can find it more consinstently.
Trial number
Date
Time of day
Bird feeder weight before experiment (g)
Bird feeder weight after experiment(g)
different in weight(g)
Temperature (degrees C)
Wind
Other observations
1
11-26
9-10 am
454
454
0
12
none
raining
2
11-26
3-4 pm
454
445
12
14
none
overcast
3
11-27
9-10 am
454
454
0
15
none
weather-normal
4
11-27
3-4 pm
454
454
0
12
none
weather-normal
5
11-28
9-10 am
454
454
0
-1
3 mph
6
11-28
3-4 pm
454
454
0
-2
6 mph
snowing
trials 1 & 2 were on 11-26. trials 3 & 4 occured on 11-27. trials 5 & 6 occured on 11-28
Conclusion My experiment was inconclsive. This was because almost no birds new of the feeder that I had placed out just for my experiment. Background research suggests that my prediction was correct and birds eat more in the moring but I cannot confirm this through my experiment.
Do birds eat more from 9:00-10:00 am or from 3:00-4:00 pm?
Background
Birds have to eat. It does make sense that they will eat more in the morning because they haven’t eaten in suck a long time. On the other hand in past experiments scientists have found that time of day does not influence how much birds eat.
Hypothesis:
I think that more birds will eat in the morning than the evening because they have not eaten all night and need to eat to be productive doing their waking hours.
Independent Variable:
Time of day
Dependent Variable:
The number of birds eating
Control Variables:
- feeder
- location
- seed
- day
- weather (although I cannot control it I need to keep it in mind)
Materials:Procedure:
Discussion:
My experiment was not very effective. The weather was inconsistent and no birds came. In the future I will have a bird feeder out for a month or more before I start my experiment so that the bird can find it more consinstently.
trials 1 & 2 were on 11-26. trials 3 & 4 occured on 11-27. trials 5 & 6 occured on 11-28
Conclusion
My experiment was inconclsive. This was because almost no birds new of the feeder that I had placed out just for my experiment. Background research suggests that my prediction was correct and birds eat more in the moring but I cannot confirm this through my experiment.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mourning_Dove
http://www.all-birds.com/feeding-birds.htm
http://www.nhoutdoors.com/birds.htm